Environmental news is increasingly grim :(

[conuly]

Every once in a while, I engage in a little thought experiment with myself.

I am the possessor of some remarkable technology, including time travel. I can bring a crack team of however many people I want to any point in time to influence history so that our current ecological nightmare doesn't happen. (We can also fix anything else we like, because there's no prime directive here.) We can, of course, bring with us seed banks and hard drives full of all our favorite media and whatever, and if we go really far back then some of us will stay in suspended animation to continue fixing the timeline for as long as necessary.

The only question is this: How much of known world history am I willing to sacrifice to make a better world today?

Every time I run this problem, I start with different dates - the 1920s? The 1800s? 1490? 2000 BCE? - before ultimately deciding - fuck it. The only way to ensure a bright future for humanity in my new, butterfly-timeline is to bring everything and everyone necessary for a modern infrastructure back to the early Neolithic era and utterly take over before our distant ancestors can do the same.

I'm not sure what this conclusion says about me.

Comments

[kengr]

Oh, also, I don't think you have to take over. Just drop hints and if necessary "convince" people it's easier to do things the way you want.

Like having *somebody* intercepting slave ships heading from Africa to the Americas would probably reduce the slavery problem by a lot.

And when they can't import more slaves, take steps too free the ones that exist. Simplest thing there would be buying slaves. That'd increase prices and make them scarcer.

At some point (if you have the money to pull it off) Slaves would be too expensive to use for farm work and many other things.

Of course, that has major side effects on production of many things.

So does any fix for any other problems thru history.

[conuly]

Honestly, I don't really trust the folks at top much, and like all people at the mid-bottom I kind of think I'd do a better job. Especially int he past.

...actually, inventing labor saving devices a few thousand years earlier (and clean electricity! and vaccines!) might do enough to wipe out most slave labor without having to lift an extra finger.

[spikethemuffin]

Most slaves were rentals, oddly enough, though, like modern-day farm equipment.

EDIT: Okay, most slave USE was as rentals, though, as slaves were too expensive to own for most of the population.

[conuly]

Lasted past the civil war, in the form of convict leasing systems.